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Opinion 


of 


4on. Reverdy Johnson. 



Jfr. Chairman : 

The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, learning through the 
public press that your honorable committee had been appointed 
to investigate certain charges against that association, although 
we have no information as to what the charges are, except that 
they are stated to be " detrimental to the character of said in- 
corporation," and that they relate to an alleged " monopoly of 
the carriage of visitors to the ground," beg leave to submit tlie 
following statement : 

Whatever guise the several enterprises brought before the 
General Assembly in relation to Mount Vernon may assume, 
whether it be a " bill to declare the landing at Mount Vernon a 
public landing," or the appointment of a committee to investi- 
gate " an alleged monopoly of the carriage of visitors to the 
grounds, with the request that it prepare a bill," they all have 
one object, to wit : the establishment of a private steamboat 
line for the convenience or profit of those not visitors at Mount 
Vernon, to which the Mount Vernon travel shall be made 
tributary. 

The great and patriotic object for which Mount Vernon was 
purchased was to preserve that estate " sacred to the Father of 
his Country," and not to establish a public landing, nor to sup- 
port a private steamboat line for private advantage, or for the 
better accommodation of trade, commerce or traffic. We have 
hitherto turned a deaf ear to all solicitations to use this trust 



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for any purpose except that to which it was consecrated, and 
shall not only continue to do so in the future, but steadily, and 
to the best of our ability, resist by all proper means every at- 
tempt to coerce the association into any such act of misappro- 
priation. 

By the terms of our charter of incorporation the property to 
be purchased was required to contain two hundred acres, and 
to embrace the tomb where Washington sleeps, the house 
where he dwelt, and the garden he cultivated, as well as the 
" wharf and landing as now constructed on the Potomac river." 
In our opinion, no part of the trust was more sacred than 
another ; no part of the land can ever be sold, or any charge be 
created thereon, nor can it be leased, even for a wise purpose, 
without the consent of the General Assembly of Virginia — a 
permission not likely to be asked for while the women of Amer- 
ica number patriotism and veneration among their virtues, nor 
likely to be granted so long as the memory of Washington is 
revered. 

No State or community, no class or individual, had promi- 
nence or priority in the voluntary contributions with which the 
estate was purchased, but it was the common offering of a com- 
mon country to a common father ; nor can any State, nor any 
class of citizens, demand to have the whole or any part of the 
property opened to any purpose, made free to any use, or de- 
voted to any interest of trade, commerce, traffic, use, or pleasure, 
but it is forever to remain a sacred shade and solemn quietude. 

The corporators in whom the legal title to Mount Vernon is 
vested were given perpetual succession, so that the title might 
never be lost for the want of a legal person to hold it. Not 
only so, but their existence as corporators cannot be terminated, 
their title impaired, nor their rights be diminished, nor their 
charter be repealed, amended, or modified, without their con- 
sent, by any legislative authority whatever ; even the General 
Assembly of Virginia is utterly powerless to do any one of 
these acts, or any other act in relation to that property, except 



only on the happening of one event : If the Mount Vernon 
Ladies* Association shall cease to exist, then the property will 
revert to the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

The property was thus set aside and so placed beyond all 
legislative control, because the patriotic projectors of this laud- 
able undertaking wished to preserve the tomb, the house, and 
the grounds from all invasions from whatever source. It was 
for that reason that your predecessors, the general assembly, 
granted the charter without the usual reservation of the right 
to amend and repeal ; and it is their secure and indefeasible 
right forever to manage and control the property, which gives 
to the whole country confidence in its final preservation to the 
noble object for which it was so wisely appropriated. 

We doubt not that the foregoing considerations will be suffi- 
cient to restrain a disposition, if any exists in your honorable 
body, to authorize any interference with, or infringement upon, 
our chartered rights, or to disturb, for any purpose whatever, 
the solemn security which has hitherto surrounded Mount Ver- 
non ; and we believe that your honorable members will all con- 
cur in the opinion that every part of the two hundred acres has 
been solemnly dedicated to a purpose totally inconsistent with 
the action now incited by those moving against the Mount 
Vernon Association. 

We are, however, advised that there are several insurmount- 
able legal objections to the proposed or desired action, to which 
it is our duty respectfully to call your attention. We therefore 
submit, as matters of positive law — 

First. That there is no legislative authority that has power 
to convert, without our consent, our private dock, wharf, or 
landing into a public landing. 

Subject to the reasonable exercise of the right of fowling, 
fishing, and hunting which others have on the Potomac, the 
limits or bounds of the land belonging to the Ladies' Mount 
Vernon Association extend to ordinary low- water mark on the 
Potomac river. 



That any person owning lands upon the Potomac may erect 
a wharf on the same, or a pier or bulkhead in tlie water oppo- 
site his own land, so that the navigation be not impeded and so 
that the pier or wharf do not injure the private rights of any 
other person. 

That wharves or landings may be either public or private. 
If private, the public have no right to use the same without 
the owner's consent. If public, they may be used by persons 
generally upon the payment of a reasonable compensation, and 
for any purpose for which public wharves are ordinarily used. 

That the keeping of a dock or wharf erected for and opened 
to the public confers a general license to boats and vessels to 
occupy it for all lawful purposes, and that when established for 
the use of the public the owner is bound to keep it in good re- 
pair, and in consideration of his doing so he is entitled by law 
to distrain for wharfage. 

The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association do not desire to 
engage in the business of wharfingers, nor was it one of tiie 
objects for which the association was created ; nor is there any 
power, as we believe, that can compel us to do so. It is true 
that the legislature may by law prescribe the manner in which 
public landings or docks may be conducted, as it may prescribe 
the manner in which public houses are to be kept, but it can 
no more convert a private landing into a public one than it can 
convert a private house into a house of public entertainment. 
It can no more make the Mount Vernon private landing a pub- 
lic landing than it can turn Washington's mansion-house into a 
hotel. It can no more compel the Mount Vernon Ladies' Asso- 
ciation to provide suitable accommodations for ships and vessels 
that it can require us to provide lodgings and other suitable en- 
tertainments at the mansion-house for the strangers or visitors 
who might wish to rest there. 

Secondly. We submit with great deference, but in entire 
confidence, that the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association is a 
private eleemosynary corporation, and its charter a solemn con- 



tract between the corporators and the State, made on a valu- 
able consideration for the security, control, and management of 
the property, and as such entirely beyond the power of the leg- 
islature of the State to manage or control, to repeal, amend, or 
modify, or even to exercise the right of visitation or supervis- 
ion ; and that our rights under that charter to manage and con- 
trol the property, are by the Constitution of the United States 
protected from all legislative invasion. 

Our case in this respect is, we are advised, what the Dart- 
mouth College case was. The legislature of the State of New 
Hampshire having undertaken to amend the charter of the 
Dartmouth College the Supreme Court of the United States, 
Chief Justice Marshall delivering the opinion of that august 
tribunal, decided that all such attempted legislative action was 
unconstitutional and void, and tended to impair the obligation 
of contracts, and as such was a violation of the Constitution of 
the United States, — a doctrine which since that day has never 
been questioned, but has been repeatedly affirmed by the high- 
est courts of the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

We make this solemn protest against the power of any leg- 
islative authority so to interfere with our rights, because we 
believe it to be our duty to do so, a duty which we owe to the 
memory of Washington, to the whole country, and especially 
to the people of this Commonwealth of Virginia, for the legisla- 
tive interference which is now invited and asked of the Gen- 
eral Assembly of Virginia, may at some other and perhaps at no 
distant day, be asked by the same or other parties of some other 
legislative authority. 

We do not, however, claim immunity nor exemption from 
any, even the most thorough and rigid scrutiny into all of the 
acts of the Ladies' Mt. Vernon Association. Ail such acts are, 
we are informed, a proper subject of inquiry before the proper 
legal tribunals, and not only so, we are at all times willing and 
ready to exhibit to all the citizens, and especially to the legis- 



lature and the people of Virginia, a full, true, and impartial 
statement and account of all the acts of the association. 

We, therefore, now here voluntarily state to your honorable 
committee, that with a view to establish a regular and con- 
venient means of constant communication between Mt. Vernon 
and Washington, we long ago contracted for daily trips to be 
made by a steamboat. 

By the terms of the agreement there was to be paid and 
there has been paid to us the sum of 56M cents for every pas- 
senger coming to Mt Vernon by that line. 

The steamboat receiving 93/i cents for carrying passengers 
both ways, or one-half that amount one way. 

The boat owners also bring to and carry from Mount Vernon, 
all its supplies and other freight free of charge ; they also trans- 
port its officers, agents, and employes, free ; not only so, but 
said owners agree that whenever they fail to make a daily trip, 
except on Sunday, or from any cause except when prevented 
by ice, they will forfeit and pay to the association the amount 
which was earned and paid to the association for persons trans- 
ported on the corresponding day of the previous year. 

The result of this arrangement has tluis far been highly ad- 
vantageous, and entirely agreeable to the association. The ad- 
vantage to us has been very considerable ; it has in fact been 
the only source from which revenue has been derived for the 
support, care, and improvement of the estate ; it has not, how- 
ever, we fear, been nearly so profitable to those contracting 
with us ; and we do not believe that if the existing contract 
was annulled, another so favorable to the association could be 
made. 

We sincerely thank your committee for all the courtesy and 
consideration that has been shown to us. We are deeply in- 
terested in Mount Vernon, and would spare no effort necessary 
to preserve our sacred trust unimpaired. If we have been 
strenuous or unyielding in our opposition to the innovations 
proposed, it was because we wished to do our duty faithfully. 



If we have too earnestly protested against any action on the 
part of the present General Assembly, it was because we 
wished to preserve our vested rights from invasions from every 
source ; and that we might finally have the inexpressible pleas- 
ure of transmitting the estate to our successors with all its 
rights, privileges and exemptions perfect and entire, shorn of no 
right, embarrassed by no unauthorized limitations, and deprived 
of none of its valuable immunities. 



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